The entire scheme is programmed to be completed by the autumn – and county council officials are confident it will be completed on schedule.

A four-week public consultation exercise over the last remaining large scale projects will start on January 20 – beginning with a briefing for councillors involved and continuing with a display in Tower Ramparts outlining what is proposed.

Proposed works include installing traffic lights at the Nacton Road/Felixstowe Road junction at the top of Bishop’s Hill, and replacing the Norwich Road/Chevallier Street mini-roundabouts with traffic lights.

Also on display at the consultation will be proposals to change the Queen Street/Princes Street area around Giles’ Circus and proposals to make changes at Major’s Corner.

The roadworks are due to be carried out over the next few months.

Real time passenger information screens are to be installed at the Tower Ramparts and Old Cattle Market bus stations at the end of this month and the beginning of February.

These should take messages from buses, telling passengers how long they can expect to have to wait.

A major improvement for drivers should be the commissioning of the Urban Traffic Management Computer (UTMC) during the year.

This enables traffic lights to be programmed to work with each other and allow convoys of traffic through a number of sets – preventing a build-up of congestion.

Officials are hopeful that this will ease congestion around the Waterfront area of the town – all the lights along Fore Street are due to be linked to each other in an attempt to try to keep the traffic flowing.

As the plans for this year were being finalised during the run-up to Christmas, council officials were optimistic that motorists would benefit.

Cabinet member for Transport Graham Newman said: “It’s key to remember this project will see a gradual improvements over the next year.

“Once the real time passenger information systems are installed and the urban traffic management control system is operational, the road network will begin operating more efficiently, to the benefit of all, whatever their mode of travel.”

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If I can make one comment re crossing at the lights. I can not belive to date that nobodyy has been run over. The number of peoole crossing when the red light is on for up and down Civic Drive but the left filter out of Princess St is on is funominal. I have seen 3 near misses with very vigilant drivers and very lucky pedestrians all miss each other. But one day they won't.

23 Million Pound spent on confusion, increase in traffic jams, slippery surfaces, gaps between bus shelter windows so seats get wet, dirty paving slabs and road surfaces (tyres), more pretty lights that are not required the list goes On. Ben the man would say something but he away sunning on a tropical island combing his hair back, welcome to ipswich council the only council in the country that can burn 23 Million Pound in public with nobody complaining, including the greatest evening newspaper in ipswich!

The town is dead. These "improvements" have destroyed any chance of a recovery. I am not sure why Ipswich residents are happy about this as it ultimately means a loss of jobs - yes further job cuts. ----- So in the year 2020, no park and ride, more expensive car parking charges, gridlocked streets, traffic lights every 250 metres, more betting shops (less actual shops) and charity shops... The problem is apart from a few loyal residents everyone has moved away from the town and the newbies have no idea of the towns decline - do a little research on the town and you will find out how it has been allowed to collapse and burn.

Well I see we are back to this old chestnut.
1. Managed lights don't work if you have uncontrolled roads entering the system. So between Chevalier St and Bramford Rd on Norwich Rd you have 3 roads that feed in to it. The system only works if it can control all flows. Only look at the stretch between Bramford Rd and the lights outside Coes. Again the "flow" is stopped by Orchard St where people constantly stop to allow vehicles to turn right or exit that road causing Norwich Rd to back up.
2. The materials used around Civic DrivePrincess St are leathal when wet, it's like a skating rink. Those used at the back of the Buttermarket are turning black because of Kebabs and drinks being spilled and buses going up the pavement. Stupid light cream coloured paving slabs in a heavy use area.
I could go on but the simple fact is this has been a design disaster, a strategic disaster, a build disaster and a total disaster.
So the question is who was responsible for wasting £23m ? As I am always reminded Mr Newman only took over in May, or was it Suffolk CC's plan all along to kill the Town. My expectation is to see the "County" Town becomming that lovely place everybody raves on about Bury St Edmunds. Lets run Ipswich in to the ground and then bail out.

So, if the new lights will be programmed to allow convoys of traffic through what happens to the traffic at the red lights at those junctions.
???.
And if anyone thinks the roundabouts at Norwich Road will stay, think again. Total waste of money.

Please dont replace any more roundabouts with traffic lights! Traffic lights stop traffic, roundabouts let it flow. Chevallier Street is already chocablock every day as it is so changing the roundabouts to traffic lights will only make it worse.

Please no more traffic lights. Journey times in Ipswich are ridiculous. Congestion has increased which means the cost of doing business increases. Tory SCC definitely have an agenda here, make it more and more difficult to do business in Ipswich and encourage investment outside of Ipswich which can be Labour or Tory MP swing seat or council. Unitary authority for Ipswich ASAP.

I will be making my formal comments via the consultation process which I hope is more than just a box ticking exercise on the Council's part.
However as someone who uses the Chevalier StreetNorwich Rd mini roundabouts on a daily basis I can confirm that this will just add more congestion that there is already, and will force a lot of commuters to find alternative routes. Something I'm sure local residents don't want.
If the council's hidden strategy is to make the roads so congested that people will be put off using cars and will revert to buses and bikes they are sadly mistaken. Most people will carry on using cars regardless, but just take their business and custom elsewhere - leaving an empty town centre as people will have migrated towards Futura ParkRansomes where the parking is free and there are less traffic lights.

Traffic lights add a bit of colour, especially at this time of year when it is so dull. I love them. And I agree with the man with the sight problem, the lights at the bottom of Civic Drive do make it easier to cross that road without going down into a dirty smelly subway.

I bet well over half of those complaining of congestion in the town are making those pointless 'across town' journeys by cars. Get on your bikes or walk, its much healthier and you'll discover that the money spent on this scheme has bought plenty of positives.

Are you nuts? Yet more traffic lights - get real, they don't help one bit and don't keep traffic flowing. Traffic lights at the top of Bishops Hill? crazy idea, Practice your hill starts everyone. Pretty soon Ipswich will come to a stand-still, it's nearly there now.Travel Ipswich - what a mis-nomer.

I wouldn't trust the local transport dept with making a cup of tea, let a lone decisions on the flow of this town. They have royally messed it up whilst spending a grotesque amount of money in the meantime. They also like drive away potential shoppers with the complete headache getting into this town. Just contract someone in who has had vast experience in sorting out town and city transport links previously and improved it, rather than relying on some unqualified div who goes around scratching ones head and asking people questions, it's farcical.

I use the Norwich RoadChevallier Street double roundabout junction twice a day, in both the morning and evening rush hours - it works perfectly and traffic flows smoothly, it rarely takes more than a few minutes to get through the junction and that's when traffic is backed up as far as the Norwich RoadBramford Road junction coming from the direction of the town centre. As the old saying goes "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" !

What is it with this county council and traffic lights, are the getting a back hander, anyone with half a brain cell knows that traffic flows better on a roundabout. the mickey mouse roundabout on Norwich Rd has worked well for many a year and now this council and there mind boggling wisdom, just wants to hold the traffic flow up, unbelievable.

Real time information is good for bus passengers but is only useful if it is properly maintained. This includes the displays, the tracking modules on the buses and the communications infrastructure.
From the experience on the Route 66 buses it is clear that SCC are only interested in the publicity surrounding introducing such systems but can't be bothered to manage them on a daily basis.
Will they step up to the plate or is this just another waste of money?

I bet well over half of those complaining of congestion in the town are making pointless across town journeys by cars. Get on your bikes or walk, you'll find that the money spent has actually been useful - as well as being much healthier.

Please no more traffic lights. Journey times in Ipswich are ridiculous. Congestion has increased which means the cost of doing business increases. Tory SCC definitely have an agenda here, make it more and more difficult to do business in Ipswich and encourage investment outside of Ipswich which can be Labour or Tory MP swing seat or council. Unitary authority for Ipswich ASAP.

The fact that traffic lights are even being considered at the junction of Nacton Road and Felixstowe Road show that "Travel Ipswich" is all about making Ipswich as car un-friendly as possible. The whole "Travel Ipswich" project has been a failure from a motorists point of view. Graham Newman is grossly incompetent, and should resign immediately.

When you see all the reports on the way the toan has been made a complete shambles, it makes you wonder why we even bother anymore!
I've given up with the buses now simply because they are always stuck in the traffic down museum street. Not the company's fault of course, but it's embarrassing.
Thank goodness ITFC get 14-15k per match & not 20+, because matchdays can be a nightmare too.
On the subject of £21m, they carry on wasting TAX PAYERS money, yet places like Ransomes Sports Club are in desperate need of the money.
Places like this are important to both the people who do already use them & for the next generation of youth coming through.
So stop wasting money IBC & start spending it on the people of this once great town.

Proposed works include installing traffic lights at the Nacton RoadFelixstowe Road junction at the top of Bishop’s Hill, and replacing the Norwich RoadChevallier Street mini-roundabouts with traffic lights.
Both proposals have been controversial, and the consultation will give people the chance to have a further say.
So they'll have a consultation, then said "Sod what Ipswich people think, we're doing it anyway".
Perhaps they should refer back to their own records of why there is currently a double-mini-roundabout on Norwich Road, rather than the traffic lights that were there before....

When I take my regular Thursday morning cycle ride to the market, I see cars and buses backed all the way up Princes Street and Museum Street, blocking off all the other streets in the area. Something I never used to see. But according to Graham Newman, the replacement of Princes Street roundabout is "successful". Which seems to confirm that the ironically-named "Travel Ipswich" scheme is actually a plan by a county council which detests Ipswich to make the lives of its inhabitants as difficult as possible.